Chapter 169: Green Bull Demon

After the new film launch conference, the crew of "The Night Watchmen of Dafeng" led by director Yuan Kui went straight to Hengdian to start filming.

As for the media, they naturally reported the incident one after another, causing quite a stir in public opinion.

The main reason is that some media are not optimistic about Jiang Heng's fantasy drama. It's okay to create a fictitious "Dafeng Dynasty", but the term "night watchman" doesn't sound classy!
The article also mentioned Chen Kaige's super shocking "Lü Bu and Diao Chan", saying that he did not want Jiang Heng to follow Chen Kaige's old path, and that making movies honestly was the right way.

It is said that after seeing similar reports, Chen Kaige almost went crazy. If Chen Hong hadn't stopped him, he would have sued those media.

You don't think highly of Jiang Heng's new film, why are you mentioning my "Lü Bu and Diao Chan"?
However, after Jiang Heng learned about the media reports, he just smiled smugly and said nothing more.

The reason why he did this was to create a public opinion storm and stir up some heat.

Afterwards, he began to select film scripts.

Han Sanping was almost overwhelmed. He didn't know whether Jiang Heng was too picky or he was just tired and didn't want to shoot. He sent a bunch of scripts, many of which he thought were good, but they were all rejected.

If it weren't for the fact that Jiang Heng made a ton of money from special effects blockbusters, he would have wanted to hire someone else!

Unfortunately, in the current domestic film market, there is really no one who can replace Jiang Heng.

There is no need to mention Chen Kaige. Although Zhang Yimou's "Hero" made money, the amount cannot be compared with Jiang Heng's film.

In Hong Kong, Xu Ke's "The Legend of Zu" was a box office failure, and "Seven Swords" was not very good either, so he really didn't dare to use Han Sanping.

Wu Yusen was indeed talented, but the movie "Windtalkers" bankrupted MGM.

Even though he cannot be blamed entirely, under the premise of “The Promise”, Han Sanping still did not dare to use him.

The best collaborator at the moment is still Jiang Heng.

However, he had not yet chosen a movie he wanted to make, which made Han Sanping very worried.

At first, I carefully reviewed every notebook I received, but later on I lost that enthusiasm.

He asked his subordinates to review it, and when they thought it was good enough, he sent it to Jiang Heng.

But one day, when Jiang Heng was reviewing the script, he found that although the story of the script had some flaws, the idea was very novel.

It combines the two dilemmas of "The King of the Golden Horn, the King of the Silver Horn" and "The Green Bull Demon" into one, instantly solving the problem of the weak plot of each dilemma.

In fact, when Jiang Heng was thinking about the adaptation of "Journey to the West", he also thought about these two dilemmas, but he didn't decide on it because he felt that the plot was a little weak.

Now that the two dilemmas have been combined, there are more plots available for adaptation.

He immediately called Han Sanping, who was extremely excited when he heard the news.

He hurriedly called several executives and drove to iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video. When they arrived at the conference room, Jiang Heng took out the script.

Han Sanping flipped through it and felt a little confused. He had never read this book before.

After asking, I found out that it was selected by a director named Zhang Lei, who didn't even know the original creator.

Fortunately, these people left their contact information when they submitted their articles, so we can just ask them to contact us.

Han Sanping talked about the cooperation with iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video. Basically following the previous example, China Film Group invested 30%, Jiang Heng was in charge of the production, and China Film Group was only responsible for investment and publicity.

The next day, China Film Group contacted the script author, first spent money to buy out the script, and then recruited him to the crew's screenwriter team to participate in the adaptation of the script.

At the same time, the selection of actors is naturally put on the agenda.

With the previous work "Lion Camel Ridge" as a precedent, the main creative team naturally tried to keep it consistent.

Fortunately, they had booked a plan to film a Journey to the West theme early on, and Jiang Heng had informed Wu Jing, Ding Haifeng, Lin Zhicong, and Zang Jinsheng, asking them to reserve time for the first half of this year.

As for the villains, Jinjiao and Yinjiao mainly fight with magic. Even if they do fight, they transform into huge monsters and use special effects. It doesn't matter whether the actors have martial arts skills.

As for the Green Bull Demon, he could fight the Monkey King with both fists and feet, so he had to be a good martial artist, preferably with a slightly stronger body. When Jiang Heng signed the script, a friend from Hong Kong called him and asked for the role of the Green Bull Demon.

Jiang Heng did not agree, mainly because he felt that if Zou Zhaolong and others appeared too often, the audience would get bored.

Just like more than a decade later, Hong Kong always produces the same type of films every year, and always features the same few actors.

To be honest, it's boring without even looking at it.

Therefore, this time, Jiang Heng decided to choose an actor from the mainland with martial arts skills to play the Green Bull Demon.

When this news came out, many actors with martial arts skills in the circle were really excited.

Zhao Wenzhuo also called and wanted to compete for this role.

Jiang Heng thought about it for a moment and finally rejected it.

Because in the movie "Lion Camel Ridge", he played the villain Golden Winged Dapeng Eagle, it is impossible for him to play the villain in this movie.

Someone recommended to him the action actor Wu Yue, who played Di Yun in the movie "The Untold Story".

Jiang Heng thought about it and felt it was inappropriate.

At this time, Wu Jing recommended a candidate to Jiang Heng, who was his senior brother, Li Lianjie's junior brother, Kou Zhanwen.

This person joined the Beijing Wushu Team in 83 and made his debut in 88. When director Li An was filming "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Kou Zhanwen was the Chinese Wushu instructor.

In the same year, he played Erniu (Hou Yi) in the mythological comedy "The Legend of the White Snake", which was his first well-known role.

In the 03 costume drama "Heroes of Sui and Tang Dynasties", Kou Zhanwen played Yuchi Gong again and performed well.

He is a man of great kung fu skills, but he always plays the role of being beaten in the movies.

If he were asked to play the Bull Demon, he would inevitably be beaten by Sun Wukong in the end.

Jiang Heng recalled the image of Kou Zhanwen in his mind and decided on the role.

Wu Jing was overjoyed when he heard this and hurried to call to inform them.

"Hey, Brother, it's done. Director Jiang agreed!"

"Ah, really?"

Kou Zhanwen couldn't believe it because he was doing so badly.

After so many years of debut, he is still playing small supporting roles.

A while ago, he went to audition for the role of Zhu Bajie in "Happy Pig Bajie", but ended up getting a role that was so small that it couldn't be any smaller. He didn't sign the contract immediately, and while he was considering it, he went to have a drink with Wu Jing and talked about his distress.

Wu Jing said that Director Jiang is currently planning to shoot a movie on Journey to the West, and if there is a suitable role, he will definitely recommend it to him.

Kou Zhanwen couldn't even get a good role in TV shows, so how could he dare hope to get a role in Jiang Heng's movies?

However, since Wu Jing said so, he held out some hope and rejected the role of "Zhu Bajie" in the movie.

As a result, he was ridiculed by the other party's assistant casting director, who roughly meant that this person was begging for food and complaining that the food was rotten.

Kou Zhanwen was naturally very angry, but because of his status, he didn't have the confidence to argue with others.

But I never thought that it would actually happen.

It's a bit legendary that he actually became the villain in Jiang Heng's new film.

However, Kou Zhanwen arrived at iQiyi and Tencent Pictures as quickly as possible, signed the contract as quickly as possible, and became one of the main creators of Jiang Heng's new film.

(End of this chapter)